Why Kansas City’s Catholics must Come Together

Let me begin by admitting to the fact that I haven’t written anything for this site in some months. After having written so frequently, so fervently on many a topic, I found myself exhausted, unhappy with the prospect of setting my thoughts to ink and paper. However, the greatest, most pressing issue at hand for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph, my home diocese, is one which brings my pen forth from its stupor.

As many will know, I have been highly critical of the now Bishop Emeritus Finn. His authoritarian leadership style, as well as his suppression of any official dialogue between social conservatives, liberals, and moderates within the diocese left me unwilling to offer anything but criticism towards his administration. All that said, I do not intend to demean his character. I have met Finn, on a number of occasions. On my first assignment as a journalist, at the 2009 National Catholic Youth Conference which was held here in Kansas City, I interviewed both Bishop Finn, as well as his counterpart from across the border, Archbishop Naumann. I found both men highly intelligent, and Finn in particular to be quite friendly and personable. For one thing he actually remembered my name, and stopped to ask me how I was doing the next time I was in the same room.

In most regards, as a liberal, I have frequently found myself in disagreement with my friends and colleagues. In recent years, as I have began to shed the scales of fear, I have in turn become more outspoken in my views, more willing to speak out when something that I find something good, or ill in the world. Let me be clear, though, to those who do not look on my views and persuasions favourably, that all that I believe, all that I espouse, is founded upon the two greatest commandments given by God to humanity: to love God, and love one’s neighbour. It is for this reason that I do not seek to insult Finn’s honour, only to speak out against his actions.
On Tuesday, I celebrated, and breathed many a sigh of relief. At long last, the leadership of the Catholic Church in my adopted city does not outwardly favour my fellow Catholics whose views are on the opposite side of the aisle from my own. Yes, I say yes, all things are political! All things are related to politics, especially in the Roman Catholic Church! Any body as old as ours, as powerful as ours, as wealthy as ours, any body with named “Roman” must be political by nature. We may not like that fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. It is better that we embrace the truth than continue to deny it.

I write today to my fellow Catholics in Kansas City with a simple request. We must work together again, as we have in the past. We must heal the wounds that have been wrought over the past ten years. We must reconcile, and as one body in Christ reunite our increasingly divided diocese. Liberals, conservatives, moderates, Tridentine Mass attendees, as well as those who prefer a more progressive type of Mass should come together, work together, to build a better diocese, a better community.

This coming Sunday, I will be at my home parish, Saint Francis Xavier, for Mass with the parish community that my maternal family has been a part of for five generations. I ask my fellow Catholics here in the Kansas City-St Joseph Diocese to do the same. Let us all pray for our diocese that we might reconcile and reunite. Let us also pray for our most recent Bishop Emeritus, as he moves into the next phase of his life, that he may think of his time here in Kansas City, and consider both what he did, and that which he chose to forgo doing. Let us also pray for our Pope, Papa Frank as I call him, that he might find the best candidate, with God’s guidance, to become our next bishop.

I thank you all for your attention, and ask God for his blessings upon each and everyone of you, no matter whom you are.